Make Me (30 page)

Two weeks later...

“Are you hungry?”

I grin and look up from my computer. “For what?”

He raises his eyebrows and holds out a plate with a piece of white cake on it.

Darko was telling the truth—he really can’t cook, but his baking is sinful. I’ve had to balance out the calories by having extremely vigorous sex with him as often as possible.

It’s a rough life.

Emotions punch me in the chest, and I sigh happily. “I love you.”

“I love you too,
ljubav
.”

I set the laptop aside. “Are you trying to fatten me up? Because if this is as delicious as your chocolate cake, I’m going to have plans for this afternoon that include cheating on you with this cake. And then cheating on the cake with you.”

He scoops a tiny bit of icing from my piece and dabs it on my neck. “I am okay with that.” His tongue licks at my neck, cleaning the icing off while dirtying my thoughts. So much for my writing deadline.

He tugs me to my feet. “Don’t feel obligated to answer, but I have a question.”

Breathless, I nod.

“I looked into this ‘favorite book’ of yours. Why would you choose that for your safeword?”

“You read the whole book?”

“Yes.”

Touched that he’d do that just to find out more about my safeword, I wrap my arms around him and squeeze him into a tight hug, tucking my cheek against his chest as I explain. “I hadn’t planned it out so thoroughly, but it ended up being scarily appropriate. The bunnies thought they were safe. And they were. Safe in their prison where it didn’t occur to most of them that anything was wrong—until someone came and shook things up. I wanted a safeword that would remind me of that. But now I realize that sometimes safety isn’t the best thing. Sometimes the thing keeping us safe is actually the thing holding us back. If I have the urge to safe out, ‘Bunnies’ will remind me to really think if I want to do it because I need to, or if I’m about to end the scene because I want to stay in my cozy little prison.”

He strokes my hair. “And what have you decided?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

The Submission Games will return...

Keep reading for a sneak peek at book 2, TAKE ME.

I’ve been summoned.

The car was sent for me promptly at ten this morning and, as instructed, I got in and enjoyed a winding tour of Seattle for an hour. We’ve been idling for ten minutes in an alley behind a restaurant. That they didn’t frisk me for weapons before letting me in the car indicates they’re too stupid to know who they’re dealing with, or they’re too powerful to care.

Judging by the car itself, a new Maybach 57S, I’m guessing the latter’s true.

But who am I meeting? The man on the phone said he got my number from an old friend in the force with me—which I confirmed—but beyond the instructions on where to meet, I got nothing.

A good soldier follows orders. I was special ops for four years and am used to being sent places without all the information I’d like, but this is different.

I’ve been retired for over a year, since my thirtieth birthday, hence the freelancing to make a living. The severance from the army wasn’t enough to make a life with.

The door opens and a tall man in an expensive suit slides in and takes the seat next to me. “Mark James.” He doesn’t offer his hand as he says my name.

I identify him immediately, a ghost from my past. “Councilman Winters?”

“Governor Winters, now.”

“Of course.”

He’s gained twenty pounds in the seven years since I’ve seen him, mostly muscle. “You’ve been doing well, I see.” His gaze drops to my leg, and with that one move, I know he’s read my file and learned about my forced retirement from the army. He gives the driver an address uptown and angles himself so he can address me more directly. “What’s new?”

His warm brown eyes and dusky skin remind me of his daughter Tessa, so much so that I grit my teeth and push thoughts of her from my mind. “What do you want?”

“I need your help.”

“I don’t owe you a goddamned thing.”

He rubs his hands together and steeples his fingers beneath his mouth for a moment. “My girls are missing.”

His words drive my heart into double time. “Since when?”

“About three weeks for Sloane, maybe six weeks for Tessa.”

My fingers curl into a fist at the thought of someone hurting them. “Have there been any demands?”

“No.”

“Any witnesses as to who’s done this?”

“We don’t think they’ve been taken, exactly.”

I turn in my seat to mirror his posture. “What are you saying?”

He turns to look out the window. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Sloane’s always been my squeaker, piping up when she shouldn’t, nagging me to do things that don’t necessarily need to be done. Tessa’s always been the quiet one, doing things behind the scenes; I wasn’t worried when she went silent.” He turns back my way. “But now my squeaky wheel’s gone silent as well, and based on our last conversation, that worries me.”

“What was the last conversation?”

Governor Winters chuckles. “Now, you know I can’t tell you the details until you agree to help me out.”

“Why not?”

He pulls a briefcase onto his lap and pulls an envelope from it. “Sensitive information. I don’t want my girls in any more danger than they’re already in.”

I’d never hurt either of them and he knows that. He means there’s potential scandal here. “Why me?”

He traces the edge of the manila envelope. “I can trust your skills for this. And I know you’re good at taking orders.”

That hits me like a boot to the nuts. Yeah, I’m good at taking orders. Hell, I proved that seven years ago, didn’t I?

His hard stare softens. “And I know you cared about my girls. You wouldn’t use this information in a way that might hurt them.”

“You mean in a way that might hurt your career.”

He shrugs. “In this case, they’re one and the same.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Find out what they’re doing, and if it’s unsafe or potentially damaging, extract them. I want you to retrieve my twins.”

I want to say no to this man who ruined me seven years ago when he ordered me away from the love of my life.

But if Tessa’s in danger, I have no choice.

“I’ll take the job.”

On her seventeenth birthday, she offered herself to me.

On her eighteenth birthday, I accepted.

I was six years older than Tessa, but I took her virginity. I held out as long as I could, hoping she’d find someone else, someone who wasn’t supposed to stay emotionally detached, someone who was more compatible with her class. She was the Councilman’s daughter and had grown up with serious wealth my family had never even dreamed of. Hell, I’d joined the army so I could have a future and three square meals a day. Little did I know the choice had been taken out of my hands the moment she decided I was hers.

The irresistible force to my immovable object. I put my heart in a box and buried it beneath the weight of the duty I’d sworn to her father. Protect her and Sloane. That’s it. Crossing that line meant compromising my future. Tessa dug the truth of my feelings from me. She was never afraid of getting her hands dirty. So much had already happened between us by the night of her eighteenth birthday, it was hard to remember the misery of my life before her. She strolled in with coltish legs and old eyes and blurred the rough edges of my past, softening everything except the one thing that shouldn’t have been hard.

Waiting until her eighteenth birthday didn’t make me less of a bastard, but I’d held out as long as I could.

The Councilman had thrown Tessa and Sloane a lavish party at the country club, mostly using the chance to show off his beautiful daughters and charm everyone in sight with his family. Even then I could never tell if he loved them or loved what they did for his career more.

At the last minute, Tessa came down with a vicious flu, leaving her feverish and tired—symptoms she faked easily enough, knowing we’d be left alone in the house together while everyone else went ahead to the party. She held up the charade until an hour after they’d been gone—until after they’d called to check on her before devoting their full attention to the party—before calling me into her room.

The only other guard on duty was working the perimeter, patrolling the grounds, though we weren’t expecting anything to happen.

The memory’s as fresh as if it was last night.

“Mark?”

The hushed urgency in her voice had me hurry down the hall on full alert, but even a seventh sense wouldn’t have helped prepare me for the sight that greeted me in her bedroom.

That smile.

Tessa lay back on a mound of pillows in a short, filmy nightie, long bare legs stretched out toward me. The road to hell, shaved with bad intentions.